Thread by @HawksmoorTweets

If you’re watching the #Amazon burn and worry about the environment, and if you wonder about #beef and why it is in the news re the environment often, and you’d like to know our view on this then this is the thread for you ...

Climate change and a biodiversity catastrophe are two of the biggest challenges that we face, and the way we think about food, agriculture and, specifically, meat as consumers and as a society is a massive part of that.

It’s true that beef production can be worse for the environment than the production of other foods, especially when those animals are intensively fed with grains and when deforestation occurs to meet demand, which is on the rise globally.

Look at the Amazon for example, where cattle ranchers account for roughly 80 per cent of deforestation in the region, and Brazil is one of the world's largest exporters of beef – accounting for about 1/4 of the global market. If you’re buying cheap imported meat it could be this.

However, the beef is bad narrative is far too general, especially in the UK, where so much of our land of pasture already, farming is not intensive and demand is on the wane. It has never been more important to choose between good & bad beef, between good & bad farming/production

Sustainably farmed beef and regenerative agriculture are so important to keeping the UK green, chemical-free and keeping us healthy.

For many years we’ve talked about rearing cattle right: living in fields in family groups, eating grass, reared by farmers who care about their welfare and the quality of the beef they produce, with minimal interference – no steroids or hormones, no feedlots, no unnatural diet.

Two thirds of UK farmland is grass, and grass is so important to healthy soil and a healthy environment: it stores atmospheric carbon deep within the soil, while its cover reduces chemical run-off, soil erosion and pollution.

Cows can convert grass into food (only ruminants can do this), and in turn they produce dung which fertilises the soil. When pastoral and arable farming co-exists this creates the perfect system for the soil, which is regenerated and stores carbon.

The opposite has been happening for decades and we desperately need to restore the fertility of the land. Methane emissions, which are often talked about in the press, do come from cattle, but the soil carbon gain has the potential to more than offset that.

The kind of beef that Hawksmoor uses involves no deforestation, no intensive farming and is often from cattle reared on land that either cannot be used for other agricultural purposes, or at cannot be changed without significant environmental cost.

We believe that we need to do differentiate between livestock that are part of the problem—feedlot beef, intensively reared chickens and pigs, intensive dairy—and support the livestock and products that come from systems that are part of the solution.

We believe Hawksmoor, which has a maximum 3* rating from @the_SRA, is part of the solution. If we had one bit of advice for making ethical decisions about your diet and its relationship to the planet it would be simple: When it comes to meat: eat less but eat better.

Thanks for reading this far. Normal service of inane chat and pictures of food or Will and a massive fish will resume shortly.

@DefendingBeef @the_SRA @SoilAssociation @SusFoodTrust @JoannaBlythman @HenryDimbleby hopefully this thread coincides with your views?